“No, Tim, no,” replied the driver with a noble air, “the road has been mended, and it is not four miles; it is a little over three; but there, we will only say three. You know this gentleman is going to the Colonel’s, a man who never forgets to offer a dhrink, does he, Tim?”
“Never!” said Tim with an air of conviction; “he offered me one the day before yesterday.”
But as it was evident the driver had already met some foine gentlemen who had given him a great many more dhrinks than was good for him, I chose not to understand his hints. At last, in despair at my want of intelligence, he decided to put my portmanteau upon his car. We seated ourselves back to back, and in spite of the disadvantages of this position from a conversational point of view, we soon became good friends. He even thought it his duty to do the honours of the local curiosities.
Castle Connell is now only a small village frequented by the fishermen, who are attracted by a desire to tease the salmon in the Shannon; but its past is more glorious, for it was once the capital of one of those innumerable kings who rendered to modern Irishmen a service they now seem to appreciate very highly, by enabling them all to claim a royal descent. It was the O’Briens, kings of Munster, who inhabited Castle Connell. They built on the banks of the Shannon a castle of which we still see the ruins, not far from the spot where the hotel now stands. To borrow a verse from king Pharaoh’s celebrated ballad, these monarchs though legitimate were full of perversity, and this led to their committing many crimes, thanks to which they became very rich and very powerful; but unfortunately for them they had one virtue, and this was enough to ruin them. They were exceedingly hospitable. But that is a common virtue in Ireland, and has ruined many families from the days of the O’Briens to the present time. The Irish gentry have always carried hospitality to such a point, that it formed the most expensive of all luxuries. The table was always laid, who ever liked was welcome, and the best in the house was reserved for strangers, until the sheriff’s officer intervened. Now Irish landlords no longer dine with each other, because they dare not go out in the evening for fear of being shot. If this wise reform now due to the benevolent watchfulness of the Land League had taken place fifty or sixty years sooner many Irish gentlemen would have escaped ruin. But Mr. Parnell and his agents commenced their work too late, when the majority of landlords were already completely ruined; and consequently they feel no gratitude towards the new arrangements. It was therefore a taste for hospitality which ruined the dynasty of Castle Connell. One fine day the reigning O’Brien invited one of his friends to dinner. The latter profited by this invitation to introduce some of his followers into the castle, and seized the too hospitable dwelling. He then put out the eyes of his host and ruled in his place. In analogous circumstances Samson unhesitatingly sacrificed his life to his vengeance. He pulled down his own house and crushed the three thousand Philistines who were in it beneath the ruins. Apparently the last of the O’Briens did not seek to revenge himself in equally heroic fashion. In the first place, he was assassinated soon after the fatal dinner. Another thing, perhaps he was not so strongly framed as the victim of the fair Delilah; and also, perhaps the Irish were better builders than the Jews: the examination of the ruins strongly inclines me to this latter hypothesis. They consist of two or three rather dismantled towers, for the old fortress, which had remained intact until 1688, was taken at this date from the partisans of King James who defended it, by the Hanoverians, who undermined it and blew it up.